The Syrian Law of Personal Status

Abstract

This Law was promulgated under cover of Legislative Decree No. 59 of 17th September, 1953, during the Shishakly regime, and came into force on 1st November of the same year. It thus represents the latest development in the series of reforms in Shari'a law, as applied by the courts, which have appeared, one after the other, in the different countries of the Near East during the last few decades. The first major example—if we ignore legislation primarily concerned with matters of procedure—was provided by the Ottoman Law of Family Rights of 1917 which, short-lived though it proved in Turkey, was applied at the end of the First World War, with minor modifications, in Syria and Lebanon and, with further modifications, in Jordan. Next, there were the series of Egyptian reforms of 1920, 1929, 1923, 1943, and 1946—preceded, interspersed, and followed by similar, but much more piecemeal, innovations in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Then, as the immediate precursor of this Syrian Law, came the Jordanian Law of Personal Status of 1951—while a somewhat similar enactment has now been under consideration for a number of years in Iraq, but seems unlikely, for the present, to be promulgated.